Articles from the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride: GROUND ZERO TEXAS

Leading Up to the Freedom Ride

During the Freedom Ride

Come One, Come All, to the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride: Ground Zero Texas!July 14, 2014by Sunsara TaylorComing from different perspectives, people from around the country are mobilizing to join with people in Texas to stand up against this assault from July 30 through early September as a critical part of fighting to turn the tide nationwide. The goals of this effort are simple: to get beyond fighting each new assault one by one on ever-shrinking ground and forge a national strategic counter-offensive; to change the way that millions think so that they understand the fight over abortion is a fight over women's enslavement or women's liberation; and to call forth mass, independent political resistance instead of relying on courts and politicians.Read more

Supreme Court Greenlights Cruel, Hateful Intimidation of WomenJune 30, 2014by Mary Lou GreenbergThere’s much more to say about this decision, but for now, let me describe some of the “caring, consensual conversations” outside the abortion clinic where I escort clients down the sidewalk to the entrance every Saturday:

NOW IS THE TIME: a statement of support for the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride: Ground Zero TexasJune 25, 2014by Carol DownerI was there in the mid-1960’s, when abortion was still illegal in much of the United States and women were forced to travel to states and cities where abortion, legal or illegal, was available, or to subject themselves to procedures done by unknown abortionists. I was one of them. I had taken no action to stand up for my reproductive rights, and I didn’t know anyone else who had. We’re in that same position today. Read more

Everyone needs to know about this and needs to be part of the fight to change the way people think, talk, and act about abortion. “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology” is what Stop Patriarchy says. Abortion is the first word in the slogan. It’s not an afterthought, not a statement that abortion should be “rare.” It creates the possibility of conversations about why abortion should be unrestricted and spoken about without taboo, shame or stigma. Students are leaders, the future of this world and need to be speaking about abortion on those terms! Read more

It is very important that Judge Yeakel has blocked – at least for now – the closure of abortion clinics that was scheduled to take place on September 1st, 2014 and laid the basis for the possible reopening of clinics in El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley.**

**This means that abortion will not become any more inaccessible to women throughout the state of Texas in the very short term. It may even mean that abortion becomes more available in the Rio Grande Valley and in Western Texas than it has been in a year, depending on whether those clinics have the ability to reopen.Read more

I got the call outside of Governor Rick Perry's mansion on Friday, August 29. It was nearly 5pm. The clock had ticked incredibly slowly that day, and there we were, for the seventh time, at the culmination of weeks of struggle, protest, and exposure. The person on the other end of the phone said, "The judge ruled. He blocked the law. The clinics won't close on Monday, but the Attorney General is going to appeal it." Read more

As Sunsara Taylor, the other Freedom Riders, and the UT students who stood with them, disrupted business as usual and held up traffic, they exposed the situation in Texas and across the country, challenging everyone there: what is your life going to be about? Many students came up to express gratitude, and shock - they had no idea that abortion rights are under unprecedented attack...Read more

Women are not incubators. This was our message to the world as we marched out across 11th Street on August 13, holding the pictures of women who have died from illegal abortions, and pointing coat hangers at Perry's mansion. These are the new terms that everyone who cares about the future of women should be fighting for, society-wide. We are sick to death of seeing women mutilated, forced to bear children that are the product of rape, left to die on Catholic hospital beds, and shamed and terrorized outside of clinics. Read more

She gave birth to an unwanted son whose very existence haunted her with the memory of her gang-rape. She carried the shame of being a single mother. Soon, she was forced to prostitute herself just to “drag herself and her son through life.” For thirty-five years, she could not look her son in the face when he asked, over and over again, “Mom, who is my dad?” This is a story told at the Austin People's Hearing of the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride last night. Read more

During the Freedom Ride, cont'd

A Morality Based on Reality: I’m Counting on YOU to End the Attacks on Abortion RightsAugust 7, 2014by Alexandria PetersburgRead at the People's Hearing in BrownsvilleI am sick of these stories. They make me sick. I have heard a hundred of them in the last year.They are unnecessary. I have heard the stories of women who take misoprostol but then don’t know that the fetus dies inside you and then infects your bloodstream and kills you from the inside. I have heard the stories of women who threw themselves down the stairs. Teenagers making pacts: “If I ever get pregnant, punch me in the stomach as hard as you can.” Overdosing on handfuls of pills. I am pissed off at this disaster zone for women and I am looking everywhere for people who feel the same way, or who are open to learning why they should.Read more

An Interview with a Doctor in TexasAugust 4, 2014conducted by Sunsara TaylorExcerpts read at the People's Hearing in Houston[Before abortion was legalized] women would try to abort themselves. Everybody thinks the cliché of coat hangers is just some made-up term. It’s not, it’s reality. Women would do anything possible to themselves if they thought it would cause them to abort. Women would beat themselves in the stomach. I had a patient who attempted to inject turpentine into her abdomen, thinking it would reach her uterus. The end result: sepsis and a sloughing of her abdomen wall. These patients experienced either uterine perforation, hemorrhage, acute infection or a combination of these complications. There are many people today that are not aware of what women endured during this time, nor the morbid consequences... Read more

Daring to Be a WomanJuly 30, 2014by an Abortion Rights Freedom RiderRead at the People's Hearing in HoustonOn May 15th, I was walking home from work when I was stalked and raped by a man who I had dared to ask for directions. This is not the first time I was violently reminded my body is not my own. In fact, I almost expected it to happen again, although I couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to simply survive after collecting the misogynist collateral damage my body had again been reduced to. I’m not going to assume that you don’t know what that’s like because the statistics scream my story is not unique. The piece of me that survived shares a common ground with people in this very room.Read more

The Controversy

Every movement for liberation has had to go up against not only the forces of oppression, but also the ways in which even many people who hate that oppression have become convinced that the most they can do is fight for some gradual or incremental change. This historic effort was no different.

For Women's Lives and Against McCarthyism:With so much on the line and the responsibility of ensuring reproductive justice for women in this country, we believe diverse ways of fighting back are necessary. Many people and groups are doing important work to address the current emergency and we applaud them.Read more

A Response to Recent Attacks and Invitation to All:For too long our side has been forced into defensive battles, responding to attacks in the courts and the electoral arena and public education and struggling to keep services open to women on ever shrinking ground. Courageous abortion providers and escorts are working tirelessly to keep abortion available to women. We salute these efforts. At the same time, we must all soberly confront the truth: much more is needed.Read more

A Statement from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USAAugust 13, 2014by revcom.usA simple but bedrock point of morality: anyone who sees an injustice needs to fight against it. Contrary to that basic point, some people in the movement act as if they were "franchise managers" of oppression, lashing out with full-blown campaigns of slander and vitriol both against those who are fighting to end ALL oppression as well as many who are fighting very hard on particular fronts against the serious attacks of this system, but doing so without the "permission" of these gatekeepers.Read more

No One Has to Ask Permission to Fight for Women's EqualitySeptember 5, 2014by Carol Downer...I see more and more attacks coming around the country, and I see very little visible protest occurring. Mostly everything is left up to Planned Parenthood and the Democrats, and I am sick of it. I think it’s time for outspoken protests saying “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology.” I respect that Texans have been working hard on this issue, but it has not been enough. We need to do more. In L.A., in NYC, everywhere. I invite Texans who are working for Reproductive Freedom and Justice to come to California. We need some help too. Read more

I Was Warned About Stop PatriarchyAugust 4, 2014by Mary Lou SingletonThe presence of Stop Patriarchy in Albuquerque did not lead to success for the Operation Rescue sponsored abortion ban. The anti-abortion ballot initiative was defeated by a wide margin. Stop Patriarchy did, however, radicalize many women’s rights supporters in Albuquerque and helped us understand the need for an uncompromising resistance to the current abortion rights emergency in the United States. Now I’m watching the same organized forces who told us to stay away from Stop Patriarchy in Albuquerque using the same strong-arm bullying tactics to defame Stop Patriarchy in Texas.Read more

Who is stop patriarchy?

Stop Patriarchy is a group for everyone who wants to FIGHT to STOP the enslavement of women. Not politely lobby against it. Not grumble at the TV. Not simply post things on Twitter. And definitely not sit around waiting for those in power to “come to their senses.” It is also a movement for everyone who can be won to see the need for this – we are fighting aggressively to change minds and to grow and deepen and escalate until we succeed in changing everything. JOIN US!